by Phil Williams | Dec 14, 2016 | Definitions, General English, Vocabulary, Words
Here’s another confusing pair of words. Deceit and deception are both nouns, both loosely used to describe the act of deceiving. The act of deceiving being the act of concealing the truth or otherwise being misleading or false. In many situations the words can be used...
by Phil Williams | Dec 8, 2016 | Definitions, General English, Grammar
With negative questions that require a yes or no, there can sometimes be confusion in the correct way to answer. Grammatically, you may assume that a negative question answered in the affirmative should be a negative statement (i.e. “Doesn’t it look good?” – “Yes it...
by Phil Williams | Sep 21, 2016 | Definitions, General English, Vocabulary
I recently had an email from a reader writing for his fantasy story website that raised an interesting point; the writer had a statement saying someone needed to check “how many guards are there” and was told that “how many guards there are” was the correct form. The...
by Phil Williams | Sep 15, 2016 | Exercises, General English, Reading Exercise, Vocabulary
Below is a reading exercise that is both informative and challenging. There are mixed mistakes included in this text; find these mistakes to test your understanding of English (while also learning about kelp!). The text, which gives a brief introduction to kelp...
by Phil Williams | Aug 4, 2016 | Brighton and Hove, Exercises, General English, Reading Exercise
An excellent way to test your understanding and boost confidence in learning English is to approach a full text and see if you can spot the mistakes. This is especially challenging if you don’t know where the mistakes are – as to decide if a sentence is incorrect, you...
by Phil Williams | Jul 21, 2016 | General English
Following the excellent response to my collection of inspiring quotes about learning from last month, I’ve collected another round-up of famous quotes on the topic. Read on for another round of encouragement from wise thinkers, past and present! Anyone who stops...